TEXAS \u2014 Texas leaders will have to make it rain if they want to fix the state\u2019s costly water crisis.<\/p>\n
The Texas Water Development Board found it will cost $174 billion over the next 50 years to pay for water supply projects, more than double the cost listed in the 2022 State Water Plan.<\/p>\n
The board attributes the price in part to a backlog of water supply projects that are not yet implemented, but some estimate it could cost more to completely address the shortage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you total all these numbers up, the $174 billion in water supplies, the $90 billion needed to fix our aging, deteriorating systems and the $54 billion needed for flood protection, it equals over a quarter of a trillion dollars over the next half century on water infrastructure,\u201d said Jeremy Mazur, director of infrastructure and natural resources policy at Texas 2036.<\/p>\n
Still, local communities will need to pay for projects themselves to keep their water levels afloat.<\/p>\n
Lake Corpus Christi is a large water source for communities near the Coastal Bend. The ongoing drought shrunk the lake to\u00a092%\u00a0below\u00a0capacity. Stalled projects to turn salt water into drinking water have left\u00a0cities like Beeville and Alice to fend for themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get all these projects done. But Beeville is just \u2014 we\u2019re at a breaking point right now,\u201d said Benny Puente, the Beeville mayor pro-tem.<\/p>\n
The City of Beeville\u00a0is\u00a0in the most severe stage of its Emergency Water Shortage\u00a0plan\u00a0and spent $35 million on additional water sources that the state didn\u2019t cover. Instead, residents\u2019 rates will increase 5 to 6% over the next three years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Texas Water Development Board has money available to small rural communities like Beeville, but it\u2019s very hard to access. It\u2019s not an overnight type of deal where you\u2019ll get your money tomorrow. This is a two-year-long process,\u201d said Puente.<\/p>\n
Beeville leadership is focused on diversifying the area\u2019s water sources in phases that include restoring old water wells, drilling new ones and recycling water, but it will take time they may not have.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not being negligent here. This was just; it\u2019s a natural disaster. There\u2019s no water. There\u2019s no rain,\u201d said Puente.<\/p>\n
The nearby city of Alice is in a slightly better situation. With their second water well coming online next month, City Manager Michael Esparza attributes their success to plans drafted over a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re deep in an aquifer that no one in our county has tapped into right now. And yeah, it does cost a little bit more to take the salts out of the water. But we\u2019re not affecting anybody of our neighbors, and we just wanted to have an uninterrupted water source,\u201d Esparza said.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers are expected to provide the needed funding over time, but with 5,800 project proposals, the next challenge will be for the water board to determine which are top priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we know which ones are more important?\u00a0They can\u2019t all be equal. I mean, certainly there\u2019s going to be some of those projects that will serve, provide a needed regional solution, provide the biggest bang for the buck, if you will,\u201d said Mazur.<\/p>\n
Local ratepayers could see higher water bills as municipalities work to ensure there is usable water available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Texas leaders will have to make it rain if they want to fix the state\u2019s costly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6329,1658,2160,132,134,133,6328,102,6363,223,287,82,27,2053,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-264161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-app-capital-tonight","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-austin","12":"tag-austin-headlines","13":"tag-austin-news","14":"tag-capital-tonight","15":"tag-dallas","16":"tag-erin-davis","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-san-antonio","20":"tag-texas","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}